Tragedy And Triumph

Two Sept. 11 Programs Take Powerful Looks At Faith, Pain And Survival.

September 3, 2002|By Hal Boedeker, Sentinel Television Critic

Television has planned such a glut of Sept. 11 programs that viewer fatigue and emotional overload could be inevitable by the first anniversary of the terrorist attacks.

Yet PBS' Frontline and ABC's Nightline take refreshingly understated approaches to the national tragedy in programs airing this week. The producers understand that restraint adds meaning and that these subjects don't need maudlin flourishes.

Nightline continues the powerful profiles of Louise Kurtz and Lt. Col. Brian Birdwell, who escaped the Pentagon attack with third-degree burns. Anyone who missed the first part in February can catch a repeat at 11:35 p.m. Thursday on WFTV-Channel 9; a continuation of their story follows at the same time Friday.

Frontline examines spirituality and anguish in the documentary Faith and Doubt at Ground Zero. In the two-hour program, at 9 tonight on WMFE-Channel 24, the speakers sound off at length about God, evil and religion -- topics that rarely make their way into prime-time entertainment.

This is not sound-bite television. Victims' relatives and religious figures get the time to lay out their ideas, and rarely do words receive such a showcase in a visual medium.

Producer Helen Whitney tells the story simply, putting the people on camera and cutting in scenes from Sept. 11 and the days afterward. The style can be a bit monotonous and quite challenging, yet the program pushes viewers to ponder profound issues, another rarity.

The documentary replays scenes of people jumping from the World Trade Center to their deaths, but that isn't a gratuitous touch. The image of a man and a woman holding hands on the way down becomes a crucial theme as the program ends.

"To me it just seemed the bleakest possible image of the whole thing," says author Ian McEwan. "I couldn't find a scrap of hope in it."

Yet Monsignor Lorenzo Albacete says the image embodies the tragedy and forces people to make a choice. "Does it show the ultimate hopelessness of human attempts to survive the power of hatred and death?" he asks. "Or is it an affirmation of a greatness within our humanity itself that somehow shines in the midst of that darkness and contains the hint of a possibility, a power greater than death itself?"

The speakers include a Muslim couple who lost their daughter and son-in-law, a stock trader who escaped from the 82nd floor and a retired firefighter whose son worked for Cantor Fitzgerald. This is the ultimate reality television, people sharing the most vital aspects of their lives.

Marian Fontana, who lost her firefighter husband, Dave, says her faith in God has been weakened by Sept. 11. "Now I can't bring myself to speak to him anymore because I feel so abandoned," she says. "I guess deep down inside I know that he still exists and that I have to forgive and move on, but I'm not ready to do that yet.''

The documentary repeatedly explores how the terrorist attacks challenged and changed people's faith.

"God could not be counted on in the way I thought God could be counted on," says Father Joseph Griesedieck, an Episcopal priest, about standing at ground zero. "God seemed absent. And it was frightening, because the attributes that I had depended upon had all been stripped away."

Yet Terry McGovern, a lapsed Roman Catholic who lost her mother at the World Trade Center, found solace in turning to the church.

"When you have this kind of unimaginable horror happen to somebody that you love, you do have to find a way to connect and hope for something much deeper," she says. "Otherwise, I think your mind could kind of snap."

Rabbi Brad Hirschfeld maintains that religion drove the planes into the World Trade Center towers and the Pentagon. "This idea that somehow that's not Islam, so we shouldn't worry is not only naive, it's stupid! It's wrong," he says. "You don't sterilize these traditions and say, `No, no, they don't do anything wrong.' "

The Rev. David Benke of the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod drew criticism for taking part in a memorial service at Yankee Stadium. People inside his tradition blasted him for praying with representatives of other faiths.

"If religion leads people to make these kinds of accusations at exactly the worst moment in American history, perhaps, then what's underneath religion?" Benke asks. "Is religion really part of a lust for power and control in people's lives?"

Faith and Doubt at Ground Zero asks so many pertinent questions that it becomes one of the don't-miss programs of the 9/11 flood headed our way.

`NIGHTLINE'

In February, I gave my highest recommendation to the Nightline edition The Survivors. "It's hard to imagine that any program this year will mean more or stick with the viewer longer," I wrote then. The update has deepened my appreciation for this remarkable film from the husband-and-wife team of Paul and Holly Fine.